Unsatisfactory Endings?

 Easter Day, Yr. B Mark 16:1-8 St. Paul’s Smithfield, NC 4/5/2015

Jim Melnyk: “Unsatisfactory Endings?”

Years ago storyteller Garrison Keillor told one of his tales from Lake Wobegon that left his listeners quite unsettled and rather frustrated.  His tale was about a youngster who went behind his parents’ back to buy tickets to a rock concert several hours away.  He and his parents had gone round and round about the concert, with the parents finally putting their foot down saying “absolutely not,” and the teenager ignoring their wishes and buying the tickets. 

But not only did he buy the tickets, he also left the house without them knowing and headed to the event.  The story ended with the parents discovering that he had made the purchase and was at the concert.  That’s how it ended: the teen off in another town having ignored his parents’ demands, and his parents standing in his room, looking at the receipt.  As you may know, this is not the way tales from Lake Wobegon ever ended.  No resolution.  Frustration and pain – and perhaps fear on the part of the parents.

The following week Keillor came on the show and reported on the number of emails, phone calls, and letters he had received by frustrated listeners.  Apparently there were a lot of listeners who just could not deal with such a lack of resolution.  They wanted an ending – not any kind of ending – but most of all a happy ending.  They wanted to know how the story ended. 

And so Garrison Keillor, in response to the hue and cry, left everyone hanging again.  Ambiguity.  The audience chuckled – but I seem to recall it being a rather uneasy chuckle.  We want to know the rest of the story.

Mark’s version of the resurrection concludes – as best as we can tell – with verse 8: “So they [the three women] went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid” (16:8).

What?  Really, Mark?  Really?  That’s how you’re going leave us hanging?  We want an ending that tells us the rest of the story – we like the endings of Matthew, Luke, and John much more, because in their stories we actually get to see Jesus raised from the dead. Mark – well Mark – he just leaves us wanting more.

Over the centuries we have found ways of domesticating Easter – perhaps because we already know the ending, and have heard it all our lives.  We turn it into a yearly renewal of new life – like the crocuses and daffodils that break through the last of the winter’s snows.  We turn it into a Hallmark event with Easter Bunny cards and new outfits.  Our sacraments become chocolate eggs and jellybeans – both of which I like – but not as sacraments of resurrection!

This morning we’ve heard both the oldest written account of the resurrection – from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, and our oldest Gospel account of the resurrection – from Mark’s Gospel.  There is nothing very domesticated about either account.  Paul is rather straight-forward.  This is what happened.  No dialogue.  No visions.  No passing through locked doors.  No breakfast on the beach.  No “feed my sheep.” Just the resurrected Jesus. 

 

Mark is even less domesticated.  As the Rev. Lorraine Ljunggren writes for this morning, “These three first century women [we encounter once again this morning] are about to receive news as earth-shaking as the earthquake they experienced the day Jesus died. They are about to receive news which challenges everything they know about death and about life.”

In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus doesn’t even come on stage.  A young man in a white robe tells the women that Jesus has been raised – and that they are to proclaim the resurrection to the other disciples – and send them back to Galilee where it all began, and where the risen Christ will be waiting for them.  The undomesticated Gospel ends with the words, “So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”  Period.  End of sentence.  End of Gospel. 

And had we been first century followers of Jesus we would have been tweeting, and messaging, emailing and calling Mark to give us more – and later writers did just that – gave us more – adding another twelve verses to the Gospel at some later date.

Is this any way to run a resurrection, we might ask?  Perhaps the answer is yes.  The story with its sharper, more ambiguous, unresolved ending is a witness to the fears and anxieties of not just the disciples who fled Jesus’ arrest – the ending is a witness to the fears and anxieties of the women who witness the crucifixion from a distance – the ending is a witness to those who were constantly amazed, awed, and agitated at the teachings of Jesus throughout his ministry. 

And perhaps – just perhaps – the unresolved ending is a fitting response to the witness of Jesus, who spends at least part of the final moments before his arrest feeling distressed and agitated while waiting in the garden.

Mark’s brief ending also allows us to feel a little better about our own struggles with faith – our own struggles with seeing the resurrection as something beyond the stuff of Hallmark Cards and metaphor. “Had the women kept to themselves this remarkable news,” writes Lorraine, “we would not be here today. Obviously something happened which inspired them to go and tell. To share the news that Jesus is raised from the dead. That death itself bends its will to God, to the Divine Creator of All That Is, to the One embodied in the life and ministry of Jesus.”  And for that we give thanks.

In 1963 John Updike published a series of poems that included the work Seven Stanzas at Easter.  Updike also struggled with a domesticated resurrection even back then. 

Make no mistake: if He rose at all

It was as His body;

If the cell’s dissolution did not reverse, the molecules Reknit,

the amino acids rekindle,

The Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,

Each soft Spring recurrent;

It was not as His Spirit in the mouths And fuddled eyes of the eleven apostles;

It was as His flesh; ours… (from Telephone Poles and Other Poems)

This is my experience of Jesus – not a Hallmark Jesus with crocuses and lilies blossoming up around his feet.  Rather a Jesus who has harrowed the gates of Hell – a Jesus who proclaims life where death has reigned.  This is a Jesus who tells us to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and who tells us to love our neighbor as one like ourselves.  It’s a Jesus who tells us blessed are the poor, and the poor in spirit; blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness; blessed are the peacemakers – for they shall be sons and daughters of God. 

It’s a Jesus who tells us to love our enemies and pray for those who seek to do us harm – who tells his disciples to go back to Galilee.  Go back to where it all started – to where they were baptized.  Go back to where the Gospel began – go back and make a choice.  Go back to your nets and tax booths – or roll away the stone and follow me!